Yes, God is my father! He can’t leave me now

Virginia, lawyer and mother of three children. Hong Kong

October 11, 2010

Tags: Abandonment to God, Gratitude, Sickness, Formation Virginia is a Co-operator of Opus Dei and writes from Hong Kong about the intercession of St. Josemaria and her son’s illness.

My son Guillermo has total agenesis of the corpus callosum. The diagnosis was made during my pregnancy and was accompanied by various complications that made me live through months of great anguish and uncertainty.

When they gave me the news, the doctors spoke of a truly dreadful situation. When things like that happen to you, you suddenly remember what you have heard in talks on Catholic doctrine, in spiritual retreats that I go to each month. I had always heard how St Josemaria experienced his divine filiation: “God is your Father”. My Father! Whilst the doctor was trying to explain the situation to me, the first thing that came into my head was precisely that: “God is my Father! He can’t leave me now. He is sending me this because he has thought of something for me.”

Everything started in week 16 of my complicated pregnancy with twins. The babies – from one day to the next – suffered from feto-fetal transfusion syndrome. This is something that can happen in pregnancies of monchorionic twins, which, in short, consists in one of the babies taking the amniotic fluid away from the other. My case was so serious that I had to have inter-uterine surgery so as not to lose both of them.

A delicate situation
Owing to that delicate situation I had to have absolute rest and exhaustive medical checks to ensure both of them survived. It was then that the doctors began to see that Gillermo’s brain was not forming correctly. He had a cyst of huge dimensions – when he was born 5cm x 6cm-, ventriculomegaly because of the pressure caused by the cyst, total agnesis of the corpus callosum and, finally, cortical dysplasia. They told me I might have a child who was deaf, blind, retarded, unable to walk, with strange facial features – and I could continue ….

I had so often heard people talking about the Cross! When a moment like that arrives you understand that you can love it, embrace it. When I thought of what my child would be like, of how he would suffer, I understood this was my Cross, the one that had been given to me. I asked God for a lot for help through St. Josemaria’s intercession. “May I be able to carry it”. I wanted to offer this suffering to God, because I understood that it was the moment to put into practice what I had heard for so many years.

18 months on
My son Guillermo, in spite of having all those things, and moreover of having been born prematurely is now – at 18 months – a completely normal child He can see, he can hear, he can walk, he plays, he laughs and he is physically adorable. It’s true that he has had to have neuro-surgery twice, and we have had bad patches (who doesn’t have them with any child!) and ever since he was born we have worked a lot with him at every type of stimulation, but there isn’t the slightest doubt that he is an absolutely happy child, immensely loved, and also one who fills the whole family with pride.

I have never asked Opus Dei for anything, and yet I have always received enormous support: the closeness and affection of a real family. At the most difficult moments that I lived through, especially the serious situation of my son Guillermo, it consoled me to know that I could count on the prayer, and above all the Holy Mass, each day, of the whole Work. I will always be grateful for this generosity of Opus Dei: without belonging to the Work I’ve had the prayer of people all over the world to rely on.

A Co-operator of Opus Dei
I am a Co-operator of Opus Dei, which is like being a close friend of the Work. As a good friend I receive many positive things from it and in gratitude I try to give something in exchange. At heart, as good friends, the only things they ask in exchange is for you to struggle to improve personally, for your holiness, and then to help them, where you can, with the work of re-Christianising the world. What less could one do?

I first got to know Opus Dei when I went to a centre of the Work in Madrid to prepare for my Confirmation. From then on I used to attend the means of formation given by people of Opus Dei. For me, Opus Dei is a way of keeping spiritually in shape. Just as one goes to the gym to keep fit, the classes of Christian doctrine and other means of formation such as the monthly recollections, help me to keep my soul in shape.

A real family
The people of Opus Dei in different parts of the world, and now specifically in Hong Kong, where I live with my husband and children, help me to nurture my faith so that I can try and be a better person every day. Opus Dei has helped me especially at the difficult moments when it was hard to see the supernatural meaning of the crosses that have appeared in my life. It has helped me to grow before the obstacles instead of collapsing.

With this formation, I am able to pass on those values to our children, just as my parents did and do with us, as well as giving us the example of their own lives.

In places such as China, it is impressive to see the growth in the number of people being baptised, first communions, vocations, etc. This happens thanks to the apostolate of many people, priests and laity, people of the Work as well as people from other organisations, who dedicate their lives, body and soul, to spreading Catholicism. That is when one feels one’s own responsibility as a Christian to contribute with one’s grain of sand in whatever way possible. As the Founder of Opus Dei said in point No. 1 of The Way, which I have always liked: Don’t let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. This is what we’re about!